A pressure-relief valve about God, and just about everything else.

Living in Vegas now, I see the Sharron Angle/Harry Reid ads a lot. I don’t get how one rich person can constantly point the finger at the other rich person for being rich! That woman makes me itch in a place I can’t scratch!

And, why do we vote for millionaires who spend multiplied millions to get temp jobs that pay only a few thousand?!!? Yet they run on TRUSTWORTHINESS!!!

Atheism is the coolest — and only acceptable– worldview. If you think a God made ANYthing, you are written off as the very Neanderthal whose existence you deny!!

The talking heads who seem to care about “certain” human rights — poverty, racism, fair access, political integrity, etc. — laugh openly at practicing Christians who claim to be created by Someone who had THEM in mind! If you dare express a thought with which they disagree, you are labelled The Worst Person in the World.

The Tea Party (regardless of origin) is the shelter where all the racists ran when that thieving, lying Negro took America from them.

When I watch Glenn Beck, I feel cancerous cells forming inside my body from the bile that bubbles up! How dare we sit idly and let him and his insidious ilk co-opt and corrupt the Civil Rights Movement?!?

I want to make a significant mark in the world with my life.I want my work to be widely known. But when I see “The Situation,” and K-Ci & JoJo Coming Clean, and Stupid Fish-Lipped Laid-up Housewives and Gold-diggers of Atlanta or the NBA or Beverly Hills, or

THIS DUDE:

I almost want to quit the whole shebang! Being famous all of a sudden isn’t indicative of hard work and talent… (White folks reading this… This is not US!!!) Who left the Famous door open?!!?

What is comely about a world that claims freedom of speech and thought, but only if you speak and think what I tell you to? Gay people — whom I neither fear nor hate — were once considered sinners and outcasts. Just as others, they once knew their behavior to be wrong. Now that society has, in its inevitable way, relaxed the restrictions and shorn the shame associated with homosexuality, they have banded and forced those of us who disagree with them into the same closets they once occupied. It’s not okay to simply disagree with you, militant gay person, but it is perfectly fine for you to outright hate, and ridicule, and belittle, and oppress me??? Don’t you see the hypocrisy? The irony?

So, we are all forced –at job-point — to become enslaved to lies by nodding our heads in assent! The word, “HATE” is a hammer that makes us all flinch in terror. It’s like McCarthyism, or old Salem, or 1933 Berlin…

What is up with all these guys cheating around and filming, texting, or voice-mailing the evidence? How can people smart and talented enough to become wealthy be so durn STUPID???

Preachers have enough material to work with these days, with poor and struggling people bursting through the cracks in the walls of this diseased world, without having time to do the sickening things they do in the name of “Thus sayeth the LORD.”

And the people who run to their defense are guilty of aiding and abetting! Pimps would have to get real jobs if the whores got hip to the game!!

As always, conservatives miss the mark woefully on love of fellow man, and liberals are wrong on just about everything else. We need rules. Or else, we’re just stray dogs roaming the streets biting people, raiding garbage, and spawning. That’s why the fact that God MADE us and made us with conscience and will matters! But we also need to realize the need for brotherhood and unity. Look at it like this… The stern God of the Old Testament, and the compassionate God of the New are one and the same Person. The unwavering Judge in the O.T. showed a lot of love, and Jesus, while sensitive and tangible, didn’t pull punches. Same God.

So, how can I, living in this paradox of a nation, be all one thing or completely the other??? Much more could be said… and has been, but is not worth recounting.

I was made aware of this atrocity by my friend, Erin. It is an example of how some people don’t know, others think they know, yet others don’t know they don’t know, and still others know they don’t know but don’t WANT to know!

And what you wind up with is — to appropriately mix metaphors — a bowl of alphabet soup with nothing but Q’s, X’s, and F’s… a cacophony of indistinguishable noises like a radio station out of range… crowd noise at an arena full of drunken revelers.

From the beginning, Joel Osteen — a nice guy, to be sure — comes out to raucous applause with his trademark pasted-on smile and answers the standard pat question (“What would you, a messenger from God, have us to do in these turbulent times…?”) with an even more watered down version of his inconsistent Word of Faith message… “Think good thoughts and good things will come to you.”

Joy Behar — with whom I RARELY agree — rightly calls his message “materialism,” saying that Jesus preached against that and ‘Christian’ Sherri Shepard jumps right in to contradict Behar! Now, she may well BE a believer, but we learn that love of material things is a no-no in the first week of Disciple School.

Granted, Behar’s challenge of Osteen was ostensibly a challenge to ALL of what she believes is Christianity and organized religion, but I would expect Shepard and Hasselbeck to be able to navigate the kiddie pool of Theology. I guess this may sound harsh. I don’t mean it to be.

At a certain point, folk who claim Christ ought to be distinguishable from those who want nothing to do with Him.

Whoopi Goldberg asked THE LOADED QUESTION: What about gay people?

That is a touchy issue, since people of a certain leaning would like to believe that their bent is proper. But what the organized lobby does — with the help of people who think they are fighting a good fight — is force you to either Advocate for their position or SHUT UP AND ACT LIKE THEY LIKE IT!

There was NO way Osteen could have gone through to the other side of that issue unscathed. But when faced with a dilemma, it is best not to sell God out with a touchy-feely, nebulous answer! We must be sensitive to all, but that does not necessitate that we shade the hardness of Biblical truth.

They all knew that Osteen’s answer would not be that is in God’s perfect will to live out a homosexual lifestyle. He knew it was a trap. ALL Christians get that stuff. Jesus had traps set for Him by Pharisees, and He told the truth in ingenious ways.

When Goldberg asked, “does God HAVE a ‘best’?” I was done! (The first video I posted here had his answer to that question, but it was removed…) What does that even mean?!? Of COURSE He does! Even though that was a milquetoast answer, the question was more appalling, and let it be known that the panel, for the most part, didn’t want to really hear Truth!

It is Osteen’s responsibility (as it is ALL Christians) to be able to answer these queries with soundness and aplomb. He didn’t.

His “message” is no more a Christian one than is an Oscar acceptance speech. And just as we don’t look to “The View” for our doctrine, we should not look to the Osteens, Dollars, Hinns, and Copelands (and Bishop Don Magic Juans) of the world, either!

Phil, at Theology Today, put up this post. I am reminded of him predicting that Jesus Himself would be appearing on the platform with him, that by a certain year all homosexuals would be destroyed with fire, and that the dead would be raised by placing them in front of televisions on which he was preaching.

In response to criticisms, he said the following: (watch the video)

(It was right after this clip ended that Hinn said that he wished God would give him a “Holy Ghost machine gun” with which to shoot ’em all down. Hence the picture on Phil’s site…)

This dude, the PRIMARY source of skulduggery on Reverend television (I won’t call it “Christian”), has the raisins to say of Todd Bentley and others, that “signs and wonders do not prove what is being preached is truth.” !!! He is the ringleader of a fake circus of false healings and slayings in the Spirit,

and he is telling his entranced followers to watch for false moves of God, calling those who fall for this stuff, “simple-minded!” Wow. Can’t believe it!What follows is part two of a six-part YouTube clip that I found at the aforementioned Theology Today. The hypocrisy and gangster-, pimp-type boldness just floored me…

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and whether you translate that “fear” to be supreme reverence or outright dread, Benny Hinn — on the strength of his own actions — has neither version!

Last week, while Christians were lamenting the loss of the Lord’s party and portending the end of the world because a pagan black Muslim OBVIOUSLY managed to circumvent the will God by being elected president, a far greater slaughter was being perpetrated on those who sought to find salvation.

Ravenous wolves were feasting on the poor of pocket and of knowledge via satellite in front of the ENTIRE world! And Christians did nothing. They sent up no hue and cry. They shed no tear. They kicked no dog. They tossed no popcorn. They cried no foul. They mourned no loss.

Rather than trust in the sovereignty of God and even for a moment consider the source of the joy, they cried, “God must be dead!” Rather than speak for those unable, they turned the channel on the carnage and let it go on unseen.

TBN was broadcasting their periodic “Praise-a-Thon.” (I call it the “Preys-a-Thon”) I am often asked why I watch this trash. I do it because it is like having the devil’s walkie-talkie. I do it for the same reason the feds bug mafia phones.

The most valuable thing we own is not our 401k, our homes, our economic stability, or our very lives! The most precious thing we own is our soul. And with souls dangling over the abyss, Christians cry and launch invidious invectives while these heartless hyenas prey on the desperation of those who have been taught to do church the wrong way for years.

They wrench passages out of context and hit the undiscerning over the head with the wrench.

Evangelicals claim to love God and thereby, His people. Especially the unborn. How noble. The unborn have one advantage over those who in ceaseless waves place their own butts into the gaping mouths of roaring lions: The unborn are not in danger of the flame.

While Godly people were crying in their chai tea about an OBAMA(!) having the gall to get elected, these “mend” and “womend” of God were sinking their fangs deeper into the souls of the seeking. Preying on greed and ignorance. And no one raised a finger to stop it.

You know why they are pimps? Benny Hinn, Paula White, T D Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Steve Munsey, Rod Parsley, Eddie Long, the Crouch’s, and the rest? Let me tell you who may not know one of the things a pimp does; A pimp pushes the envelope. He will say to himself, “I’m gonna see just how far I can go with this female… I’m gonna tell her to do the craziest, nastiest thing I can think of (hear me, R. Kelly?), and if she does it, I GOT HER MIND! And once I get that mind, thass IT! I can get anything I want! I can get her to do whatever to get money and give it to me. I’m the baddest pimp out there, an’ I’m gonna prove it by buildin’ up the biggest stable out there!” I know guys who have done this! (I’ve been to college. YOU know it’s true!) I have seen and heard withering things.

A pimp has an ego that is never filled.

I have seen it. I have heard preachers brag to each other about how they “preached ’em under the pews!” They brag about who has the biggest congregation, the most cars, and yes, the most women.

Listen to this;

And this;

This stuff is the equivalent of a guy telling a girl, “Let me (perform all manner of perversion on your body — I cleaned it up).”

I guarantee you these guys were backstage afterward comparing (biceps). They were bragging,“Man did you see how those phones lit up when I quoted Matthew to ’em? They eat that stuff up! I’m telling you, the more predictions you make, the more they love it! At the end if I told ’em that at the ascension, Jesus turned into a crow and flew to the moon to build timeshares, they would have knocked each other down to sign up! They want MONEY, baby, money!! And it takes “money” to get money! My congregation gave me a Rolls Royce Phantom when I told ’em the Trinity was nine people and Adam could fly!”

Pimps! Pimpin’ h&es an’ slammin’ Catlack doe’s*

And rather than fight THAT fight and save SOULS, evangelicals were crying and expressing fear (and bigotry) because their candidate lost. God lost. Do you know how many evil kings ruled over Israel? My goodness! Sunday, five days after the election, my pastor in an effort to quell growing despair and disrespect, quoted 1 Peter, 2: 13, which basically commands us to respect the authorities placed in charge. I was not allowed even twenty-four hours to enjoy the fact that this country had taken such a great step. It was like wrecking a new car as soon as I drove it off the lot. Regardless who you voted for the fact that America grew to this point deserved more from the Christian Right, who is already tagged with the label of not caring for minorities.

We need to get our priorities in line and do something about those who do ETERNAL harm. GET THIS TRASH OFF TV!!

Used to be that thieves wore masks and did their dirt in the dark. Nowadays, they do it in shiny suits, and on satellite teevee before God and millions!

I had tears of laughter in my left eye, and tears of sadness in my right watching this clip…

“Seeds” are not dollars, folks. “Seeds” are DEEDS. Don’t try to buy God.

Don’t let these guys with their “Aw, shucks,” cracker barrel twang, or their Philly cream cheese voices lie to you AND steal from you! You may not be able to stop one, but you can certainly stop them from doing both!

We sin daily, and I know that when I bend my knee tonight I will have to clear from my account all the sinful wishes I had for Todd Bentley when I saw him here kick a stage four colon cancer patient in the colon!People are so desperate and often so ill-informed, and this is how they are treated.

Actually, Bentley is just doing physically what all the hucksters do spiritually.

The Lord takes no pleasure in the fate of the wicked. I ain’t God, and I’m earnestly working on that aspect of myself…

What are Paula White and Juanita Bynum doing these days? They haven’t been in the news or on tv as much lately. I see Paula every now and then doing her Oprah thing, and I guess Juanita is busy with her make-up line…

One would think that since they are not as visible the Devil has lost and given up.

Nope! Enter this Todd Bentley dude. He is following in their hollowed footsteps and is leaving his own “brand” on the scene. He looks like a biker or a circus performer with more tattoos per square foot than the entire roster of the Denver Nuggets, and more piercings than a dartboard in a bar somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen.

And as striking as is his appearance, his “teachings” are more disturbing.

His crusades from down in Florida (Why is it always Florida?) are always on, and his misled followers seem so sincere and emotional.

Just the other day, I saw this one guy — he was Asian. I don’t know his name — doing the Benny Hinn thing — laying folks out in a phoney display of “the Power of the Holy Spirit,” and he began telling this story.

They all have stories about what happened somewhere else. (2Peter 2:3) “In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.” Do none of the attendees recall this passage? Read all of 2Peter 2.

So, the “handlers” walk the next pawn up to the speaker, telling him — and us — that this man has been suffering from a bad back since a 1974 car accident. He has metal rods in his back and cannot walk straight and is in constant pain.

But now, praise tha lawd, he is better!

The barker, I mean, speaker shoves the mike under the mark’s chin for further elaboration… “I been in constant pain since ’74, but since I been coming to the meetings for the past few days, I can feel the power of the ‘anointing’ flowing through me, hallelujah!”

The handler intones, “Pastor, he says he’s 70 to 80 percent healed!”

As though this is some indication of the great and marvelous power of God!! No one seems to react as incredulously as I did! Can’t God heal all the way?!? Does He work in installments? Like buying a couch? Did the man Jesus healed take up his mat and LIMP away? Did the woman with the twelve-year bleeding problem leave Jesus with minor spotting? Did the blind man He healed need glasses? What’s UP with these folks?!? I mean, you don’t even have to know the Bible verse by verse to deal with these con men!

And that’s not all…

The speaker began to tell his story.

“I was in China just last weekend, and Saturday, this woman came up to me. She had a broken leg, and it was in such bad shape that they put a titanium rod in it, and she couldn’t bend it or move it or anything. Ohh, the anointing is so strong on me right now! She couldn’t do anything with that leg, and I tell ya, right before our eyes, the Lord melted that titanium rod and healed that leg just like new, and she jumped and danced all over the place!”

The crowd cheered in childlike anticipation, eating it all up like Apple Jacks.

“That same anointing is on me right now,” he said as he turned to the mark. “I feel the pow’r of GOD!!” He slapped the man on his forehead, and those handlers proceeded to — ever so gently, since he was only 70 to 80 percent healed — lay him out on his back softly on the floor.

And that’s the last we saw of him. Only his friends and family are there to see that he was not healed, just taken. Used.

My thing is this: For weeks now, everything Bentley and his cronies have been doing has been televised. Every “miracle” has been logged on video. Cameras are everywhere! If this is true, somebody tell me why there was no video of a woman having a titanium rod dissolved inside her leg in front of a multitude just this past Saturday?!?! We saw this dude with his bad back partially healed on video, we see four and five hour commercial-free healing crusades, but nobody has a camera to catch this great miracle.

I saw cellphone video showing Beyonce trip and fall off stage in Japan somewhere, I heard Obama talking about folks clinging to God and guns in some hotel conference room in San Francisco, Marion Barry was caught on camera smoking crack, I saw Paris Hilton use a racial slur at a house party, I’m sure there is some YouTube footage of Britney Spears scratching her butt in a truck stop bathroom, but someone rises up from the dead, or someone gets a long-broken leg healed and it’s aways somewhere else! There is always some story about some fabulous miracle that the television audience just missed! “Y’all should’a been there!” No cell phones, no cameras, no verification. Yet the masses are always teeming like grunion on the beach, begging to be devoured, carcasses left rotting in the sun, of no more use to these emissaries of Satan.

Until the Lord mops all this business up, we will never be rid of the lying storytellers who prey on the unaware. If Paula falls, someone else will get up. If Creflo is toppled, another will be built up. Juanita will probably live through another ice age…

But, (2 Peter, 2:13) “they will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done.”

“Why would the Holy Spirit want to live in a body that can’t see out of the eyes, or hear through the ears?”

Frederick K.C. Price in outrageous/unbiblical defense of his (and the entire Word of Faith movement’s) position that all Christians are to be without infirmity and can demand that God heal them. This was before his own surgery, by the way…

I saw this while watching her show on tv, and it is my understanding that it is on her own website as well. Where is any semblance, any modicum, any crumb of humility? As we say around the way: She is a mess wit’ herself! There should be no further question as to her true character and motives now.

I mean, I understand that in business, there is a need for some self-promotion, but even in non-Christian related ventures, this would come across as arrogant! I think the word “God” was mentioned twice. This wasn’t just a little bit over the line, this was two minutes and fifty-four seconds of supercilious pride and haughtiness that would make Terrell Owens turn the channel.

Donald Trump was like, “C’mon. Juanita. That’s a bit much.”

Some Quotes;

She “cries loud” all right! All that yellin’ scared me and flashed me back to my childhood! I thought somebody was gittin’ a whuppin’ in the back room and I was next! Spare me!

“A tangible anointing.” Will someone pleeeze tell me what that is?

“The prophetess to the nations!” Says who? She profits from the nations! Yellin’ loud don’t make you a prophet!

“She’s an awful — Oh. Did he say ‘awesome’? — teacher who delivers God’s Word with ‘boldness and authority!’ “ Yeah, but how about accuracy?!?

Her ministry has been MARRED, not “marked with signs and wonders.” I remember seeing her once say to a vast, gullible throng something like, “Man! I wish y’all could see what I see! There’s angels and spirits flyin’ all around here! They ate that stuff up like it was Bluebell Homemade Vanilla!

“Bestselling author…, popular television personality (who) causes ratings to soar…, humanitarian…, a national ‘recarding’ artist (sorry, I don’t get that singing thing. SouljaBoy went platinum, too. The emperor has no clothes on, folks.)…, executive producer…, playwright, and powerful actress(!!!).” Okay, I was going to protest the “powerful actress” part, but as I think about it, that is pretty much all she does, based on comparing her demeanor and content to the actual Bible.

“Businesswoman, entrepreneur, blah blah blahblahblahblah…”

Y’all catch how they showed the one White woman in the crowd when the “promoter” mentioned “crossing denominational lines?!?” Now, THAT was some slick, subtle editing, there!!

She’s going to have a show (200 seats!), a radio show, a reality show, a magazine, a spa, some candles, some tea, and some make-up! She’s doin’ it BIG!

Let me axyou something, Miss Profitess: What about Jesus? What you gone do for Jesus? What big thangs is HE doing? Where is He in all of this, since you have folk thinking that He is your primary focus? All I see is you strutting and preening like a peacock back and forth across the stage. I only see pictures of your beautifully reconstructed face, not a picture of Christ in your carriage. All I see are your products. Your tea, and your make-up, and your magazine. All I see is YOU. Yet, you claim to be doing strictly the Lord’s work.

David boasted. But he boasted on the LORD! Because of him and those like him, we know of how great GOD is, how strong and mighty HE is, how matchless HE is, how wonderful, loving, just, merciful, beautiful, HE is. (Although, I would say that it is acts like yours that show us how long-suffering and patient he is!)

What about Jesus? Can we see Him doing this? Even though He has a right to?

Can we picture Peter saying on Good Friday,

“Ladeeees annnd gennnnelmen… Arrrre yooooou redddy for STAR time?!? Git up on yo’ feet an’ giveitup! He was rich, an’ gaveitup for YOU! From the town of Nazareth, by way of On Hiiiiigh… Commmin’ to you straight from the right hand of The Father HisSelf… He healed the sick, He raised tha DEAD!… Cured lep-ra-see! He fixed crooked legs an’ blinded eyes, He fed tha multitudes wit’ five loaves a’ lightbread an’ two cans a’ Jack Mack!… He ran off demons… He’s performed in Galilee, Jerusalem, an’ is comin’ to a hillside near YOU!… Some know Him as the Firstborn, the Bright an Mownin’ Star, The Son o’ Mannnnn, THE Angel of the LORD, E-Man-U-EL, YOU call ‘Im Saavyuh, I call ‘Im Friend, Howbouta grett big handclap ‘a’ praise… ridin’ on a thurrabred Arabian stallion, wearin’ the purple linen robes of pride an’ exaltation… Y’all giveitup… for Jeeeeesus!!!!!

(Sorry, Lord. I’m just trying to make a point…)

I don’t think so, yet you, Bynum, are bold enough to sell yourself in such a brazen, arrogant fashion while riding on the Lord’s back as though He were your pack mule, your opening act!

I’m glad you let us see your real mission!

You must’ve sent one of your armor-bearers out to get your sheep outfit cleaned when they cut this promo… Would that Creflo, Paula, T.D., Copeland and the rest do the same.

I guess we have to learn the Bible to peep their game. I wish we all would. That is all I am saying. “No More Sheeps”, people.

This is a poem I wrote back in the nineties for a family member who wanted something for a church program. (It was my former home church, and I saw them beginning to fold in some Word of faith language and practice into the way of worship. This was a subtle way of letting them know a better route. It went ignored. I left.) It sums up my thinking concerning why I call out false teaching when I see it. It is not artsy and metaphorical.

I wonder if they feel like the mafia felt when the U.S. government turned the full force of its wrath on them… I wonder if they are getting their lies I mean stories straight and lining up their ecstatically ignorant supporters with tales of persecution and such. I can hear the accountant’s papers shuffling, and the cell phone keypads tapping. And shredders are growling and regurgitating from being hastily overfed like my boy, Max does when I find myself in too much of a hurry to get him through eating so I can get back to watching “ESPN’s First Take.”

“The Rolls was a GIFT.”

“The mansion belongs to the chu’ch!”

“I need a 10 million dollar jet! I’m too bizzy to fly commercial.”

“This cosmetic surgery was just to clear up some… waitaminnit! WHAT cosmetic surgery?”

“I have a particular hip problem, and my research showed that only a 23,000 dollar john would get to the butt of the issue. Besides, the Bible says that we are the head, but why shouldn’t the tail be well taken care of, too?”

“I ain’ gotta anser to tha world about God’s bizzniss! My sheep know my vo-ice!” (Yeah, but I bet your sheep can’t get a meeting with you, or ride in that jet, or visit that gated mansion!)

I can just hear all of the pimpish game they will perpetrate against those who follow them and who shout loudly, “Lalalalalalalalala” to keep the truth from crawling into their ears. They will create a siege environment like Jim Jones and David Koresh did where the “world” is trying to destroy the good work and prosperous living of God’s people.

Here is the punch line, though; If they think THIS investigation is intrusive and punitive, wait until they “getta loada” what God has in store for them! The GUBment only wants to know where the money went. GOD is concerned about

every.

single.

aspect.

of.

their.

lives.

Every detail!

They have led millions away from the TRUE gospel. One which does NOT focus on the accumulation of wealth, but on the emptiness, the broken body, the shed blood of Christ. For this it is said that it will have been better for them if John Gotti had fitted them with cement boots and dumped them into a river. Direct quote…

They have loved money rather than the Savior. They have taught others to do so.

They have demoted God, and in some strange, cosmic mutiny, promoted man to His captaincy.

They have ineptly wielded the Sword of the Word of God and sliced up the souls of multitudes, many of whom are dead, gone, and unable to hit the reset button.

God alone knows the rest of what they have done. And there are dozens, even thousands more unnamed crooks who do the same and worse.

The judgment of a senate committee is nothing compared to the Omnipotent Panel of One that awaits those who use the Bible as a Player’s Handbook in order to manipulate the finances– and souls– of so many. This same judge will evaluate us in the same manner if we eschew the Love of and service to Christ in favor of selfish pleasure.

So, Klepto Dollar, Bentley Hinder, Joyce Mirer, Eddie Long(money), Kenneth (can’t)Copeland, Paula White(washed sepulcre), it looks like you will be getting a small, small preview of what may be in store for you if you remain in your current state. As for Fred (pay the) Price, Paul Crouch(ing wolf), Joel Ovaltine and the rest of you, you obviously don’t fear the God you defame, so maybe fear of the government hammer, public disgrace and financial devastation will make you stop victimizing the weak and unlearned.

It is not with glee, but with a feeling of impending justice being meted, that I ask, in the words of that illustrious theologian, T.O.:

The “Hypocralypse” (hi-POK-ra-lips) n def. – The sudden upsurge of “preachers” (read: “Carnival Barkers”) who convolute the Gospel into a means of obtaining wealth from their “marks” by telling them to go get it from God.

Key sign of the Hypocralypse: They boast of great wealth and “Supernatural Favor,” they flaunt their Bentleys or top-end Mercedes’, they regale with stories of lavish mansions, (tax free “parsonages”). And rather than share with you the wealth they got from you, they make up magical formulas disguised as “Biblical Principles” for you to “tap into” the same blessings of God.

ex. “Use the same faith God used, the “God kind of Faith,” and create whatever you want, just like God did! Being made in the image of God means you can develop your Faith to the point to where you can do exactly what HE did!”

The Hypocralypse is often associated with “Immagettin” (ah-mah-GED-n) n , which is the great battle being waged by biblically loyal Christians against crooked, heartless, greedy, satin-tongued fake prognosticators who are “gettin'” every dime they have from those who don’t know and don’t WANNA know the hard Truths of Scripture.

The fighting is fierce, and the enemy is great in number, but as always, the Lord will win out with fewer soldiers that He may prove His might! There will be no secret, “catching away” of the saints in this battle! The example of Scripture is that Christians have to join the battle, not hide away from it.

If you are angry about these terms, you are either a three-legged sheep, or a wolf with a lambhock in ya mowf (mouth)!

This “Charlatan’s Web” thing is getting tangled! Last night after I got home from work, I saw that I had received another comment that traces back to that earlier “Web” post which dealt with Creflo Dollar’s twisted theology. I felt that this was a decidedly civil and Godly example of how to express possible disagreement. As before, I have posted the comment, unedited, sent to me by Micca. This was a public conversation, so I put it here so that more of you can see what I think is my rebuttal of the prosperity gospel belief that those of us more orthodox don’t believe FULLY what God has for us in terms of healing.

I specifically deal with the oft-quoted, Isaiah 53 passage. Look it up. Do the cross referencing.

Micca said (“with gentleness and respect…”):

Maxdaddy: I didn’t see the first postings and there are some things that I truly agree with you on in this post. But there are some things that I take exception to. I will only respond to a couple now, not sure how much disagreement you allow on you blog and I just don’t feel like typing for nothing.
I do agree that many of the prosperity preachers are out there preaching whatever feels good and whatever will motivate the congregations to give their money. A lot of them are basically motivation speakers who have zeroed in on a way to make a nice buck.
But still, you said…..”to RECONCILE us to the Father, to HEAL the rift between us, NOT to heal cancer or such, which is the proper, broad context of Isaiah 53:4, 5.
I say, look at the state of man in Genesis before the fall. If the rift that Jesus was “healing” was the relationship between man and God as you state, then who was Adam before the fall? Was Adam sick and hurting and lacking? In Gen 1:26-….and let them have authority over all the earth and over everything that creeps the Earth.Ver 28 goes on to say ….be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Adam had control of his environment, he was healthy, he was well fed, and once he got with Eve (wink wink) he was content AND he was able to freely communicate with God. Now by healing the rift between man and God what was it that Jesus restored us back to?
You said….” The PHYSICAL portion of that passage was completely fulfilled in Matthew 8:16-17.” I’m trying to follow you on this one because Jesus heals again and again after that. So were you trying to say that because that prophesy was fulfilled that He retired from healings? Do you think that Jesus came to Earth and left instructions for establishing churches only to relinquish all of His compassion and empathy for the very people that He came to save? Do you know of anyone who has been physically healed? Not cured by a Dr. but healed? I am trying to understand because I like most of the things that you post but this time I really couldn’t go all the way with you. Let me know what you think.

I responded:

Micca, thanks for your response. No, I allow disagreement! I think it would be, for me, kind of phoney to only allow those with whom I agree to post. Disagreement forces me to go to the Bible and study it to make sure I’m in line with it. It is the opportunity to sharpen my iron, so to speak. I am not a theologian, only a layman, and I need all the study I can get, as do we all. It is a fearful thing to take casually or mishandle the things of God, and to the extent that someone may take what I say and run with it, I want to be dead sure that I did the best I could!

Let me be clear: I absolutely believe that God heals, but I also absolutely believe that it is not the norm for people to be miraculously healed. Were that the case, we would see story after story of arms and legs being replaced, and empty eye sockets being filled and dead people being resurrected. We don’t. Why not?

It is my contention that Jesus’ healings were to PRIMARILY fulfill prophecy as to who He was. And that the apostles’ healings were to PRIMARILY lend credence to their station as the foundation of the church (which can only be laid once, according to Scripture), and to establish them as who they really were. Of course many people were healed. Many were not, though. I contend that, as the Bible says, our primary concern is not that which kills the body. Our main focus is to be on eternity, alongside which, time barely even exists. “Though He SLAY me, yet will I trust in Him.” When that tower fell and killed those people, Jesus told us not to be so concerned with that, but to get our souls right because we ALL will die (some cruelly) and face God.

Matt 8:17 states that,
“This was to FULFILL what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.’ ” (When a prophecy is fulfilled, it is fulfilled. The reason we say that Jews are mistaken is because the prophecies concerning the Messiah have been FULFILLED in Jesus. There is no need to wait for further fulfillment.)

That prior quote is from Isaiah 53:4 only. verse 5 says, “BUT He was pierced for our transgressions (sins)… crushed for our iniquities (sin)… AND by his wounds we are healed (from the eternal consequences of sin).” This last part, read as literature, logically concludes that what His wounds healed was sin, not disease.

Now, I submit that diseases are the RESULT of sin, not sin itself. In other words, autism may be the indication of our fallenness, but it is definitely not a sin for a child to be autistic!

No, I don’t suggest that the healings stopped there, but as I stated earlier, they sure decreased in number, till now miraculous healing is RARE at best! I’m only saying, in using Matt. 8, what the BIBLE has said. I’m not adding to it.

The compassion of God CERTAINLY remains with us. We have the Comforter, for instance, but my point is that there are numerous passages that state CLEARLY what Jesus’ mission was here– to redeem mankind, to justify us, to reconcile us, to atone for our SIN, to declare us POSITIONALLY righteous (not PRACTICALLY SO).
These, and many other clear and unambiguous passages certainly outweigh two or three dubiously interpreted verses in Isaiah.

As you know, hermeneutically speaking, we must ALWAYS interpret cloudy passages in light of those that are clear.

As for Adam, I’m kind of unclear on what you are suggesting here. If you are saying that we are restored to what Adam was before the fall, I say that Adam was made GLORIFIED and undefiled. Paul teaches us that we, being once again POSITIONALLY righteous, are but a bud of what we will blossom into when we recieve OUR glorified bodies at the end of all things. We only now see through a glass darkly. We will not be practically restored until after the resurrection. The Bible is clear on that. Besides, if we were like Adam was, we’d be living 900-some years like he did. We still sin daily, and still have to ask forgiveness for that sin daily. How can we claim to be “all that” when we now have to stand on Jesus cloak, so to speak, to have fellowship with the Father? Our righteousness is still filthy rags!

By the way, the word “authority” is not an autonomous word. Any word HAS to be interpreted within its context. The Word of Faith movement likes to use the omnipotent form of this word almost always (to build up their false theology, which DEmotes God, and PROmotes man), and that is faulty exegesis. Adam was a STEWARD. An employee of God. God’s gardener, His botanist, His ornithologist, His biologist, His agriculturalist, etc. Adam’s authority went as far as God’s front door. No further. IF that far!

I hope I covered it all. It would be cool if you agreed with me, but if you don’t, that is fine. I would just ask, as always, that we learn that the Bible is literature, and should be read as such. It should be interpreted INternally, and sewn together like a tapestry.

I appreciate the charity and fairness with which you framed your comment! God bless. Derrick.

Would that all who have issues deal with them in such a civil manner. When I post things on false teaching, I often employ humor, and some sarcasm. This is generally in response to those who have ALREADY demonstrated an unwillingness to have their views questioned. Folk like Dollar, who sent me a donations form letter when I addressed him, and COGIC pastor and blogger Stephen F. Smith, who regularly deletes comments with which he disagrees, launch terms such as “heresy hunters” at people who question endorsement of “wolves” and “vipers” who victimize baby Christians for sordid gain, and point them out as instructed.

As a matter of fact, Smith, who lives in my area, is known to promote Dollar, Juanita Bynum, Clarence McClendon, and many other false teachers on his blog. This led me to ask him if that meant that the COGIC endorsed the teachings that Jesus was less than God, and that man is more than man and all the rest of the aberrant teachings of this crooked, twisted Word of Faith movement. He deleted my question without addressing it.

It may be fair to call some of my posts biting. Some folks NEED to be bit! But one thing about me is that I am not so prideful that I don’t think I can be told– and convinced– that I’m wrong. But you gotta convince me, though! Micca expressed his concerns in a manner that engendered a similar response. If we are about the work of God, as we claim, why should our thoughts be above reproach? My prayer is that I continue to grow and learn about God and His Word, and that you who read this do as well.

Iron sharpens iron, the saying goes. If Christians understand and rightly employ the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God when facing crooked, charlatan preachers, we can de-fang them and allow Truth to pour forth. A toothless wolf is no threat to the body of Christ.

Here are a few more catch phrases used by those in the prosperity movement. As I stated in an earlier post, if you hear two or three of these in one sermon or telecast, run for your soul! This spiritual bubble gum can make you feel good about yourself, but you’ll get scurvy or something else if you try to live on it!

1″We ’bout to go into the enemy’s camp and take back everthang he took from us!!!” (I thought Jesus already did that on the Cross?? What biblical precedent is there for this kind of declaration? Did the enemy take your BMW, or your Huzzzband, or your new house? Stop. Please.)

2 “I’m walkin’ in my authority.”

3 CO-pastor, Mrs. so and so (Was your wife listening on the other line when God called you to preach?)

4 (In prayer) “Satan, I bind you…” (We don’t pray to the DEVIL! And besides, if you keep binding him, how does he keep getting loose? Does the demon of rope-breaking sneak in and break him free? Or did the demon of nicotine light a cigarette and burn the rope up?) By the way, get out your Bible and flip to 2 Peter, 2: 10, 11, and Jude 8, 9, and notice that the very angels, even Michael, the Archangel dared “not bring slanderous accusations” against the devil and his demons. How dare we do it? “Bold and arrogant,” however are the false teachers that use the Word of God for selfish gain.

5 “In this hour,” as in, “God is about to do a NEW thing in the body of Christ ‘in this hour’ ”

Can someone send me the link to the website so I can get one too? No, not every doctor is a pimp, but just about every pulpit hustler is a trumped-up, bible-twisting doctor! I guess it adds weight. Creflo is a doctor like Judy is a judge!

The following is a conversation I had with a person on this blog in the form of a comment he, or she left in response to a post (“Charlatan’s Web”) I wrote about Word of Faith charlatans and their obsession with materialism. I felt the need to publish it in this form because I wrote so MUCH! No, really, I felt that it summed up the feelings of those in the WoF congregation, and identified why a defense of orthodoxy is necessary. I mean not to offend by posting this since his comment was made public. The first portion of what follows is his comment, unedited. The second section is mine. I hope this reaches some.

He said:

i think you guys are missing everything! what’s wrong with being a christian and have the blessing of the Lord over your family and wealth? can we not be rich and righteous. there’s nothing wrong with money, it’s the love of money that is wrong. we can have victory over any circumstances in our lives because Jesus went to the cross, died, and rose from the dead to take the authority from the devil and gave it back to us humans. that authority to speak and have power was once lost when Adam gave it away in the garden of Eden. if you truly listen to the message from ministers from WoF is that we’re giving all the glory, honor, and everything we own to God. it’s through obedience, faith, and spirit led that we’re blessed. “if you seek the kingdom of God first, then he will add everything onto you.” to see a harvest you must plant a seed and feed that seed with your faith. that seed is going to help bless someone and i don’t care who it is as long as God see that i am obeying him someone will come my way to help me. i say that it is true we give our 10% that belongs to God and offerings on top. it’s through giving that i have become a better person…now, i’m not rich! but i’m rich in the holy spirit and i’m in line for my blessing. when someone gets blessed with what they hoped for…i don’t get mad or jealous…i’m like…wow, God is great. if you look in the old testament kind david and other kings were rich…and he did a lot of things that would not get away today. he was a murderer and committed adultery. CNN & FOX, would have a field day about a man of God who did that. but look God forgave him and he repented and his wealth passed on. people think that Jesus was poor…it never said that in the bible…why would God send his only son to be broke…Jesus talks a lot about prosperity through God. i don’t think anyone of us has ever took money advice from a bum.

Comment by hmmm.. October 11, 2007

I replied:

No, the fact is that I think that you are missing a couple of things… First, the point is not that I think God wants everyone poor, which is the straw-man argument the WoF uses, but that He wants us CONTENT in whatever state we find ourselves, as the Bible teaches. And the VICTORY that we can have in our “circumstances” is to be resigned to God’s will, whatever that is.

Jesus did not go to the cross for that or any authority, but to RECONCILE us to the Father, to HEAL the rift between us, NOT to heal cancer or such, which is the proper, broad context of Isaiah 53:4, 5. The PHYSICAL portion of that passage was completely fulfilled in Matthew 8:16-17. Please read it. And please read the context– before and after– any such passage you hear quoted. No matter WHO teaches it. This is your Christian duty.

That stuff about Adam having lost the “authority to speak and have power…” Please show me where the actual BIBLE teaches that. And other of the teachings of WoF teachers that take authority- and divinity– from God, and give it to man.

I humbly suggest that WoF ministers do NOT give glory to God (precisely by claiming that men are in any way god material), but they usurp the glory of God and give glory to “Faith,” man and mammon! They brag about STUFF, and whip folk into frenzies about all the STUFF God is trying to get to them. They tell sick people that their lack of faith, not God’s sovereignty, is alone the reason for their sickness. This is dangerous.

In the Sermon on the Mount, which is where you got your quote about “seeking first the kingdon of God…”, PLEASE note that the context of the entire sermon is not about being rich. And the near, specific context of your statement, Matthew 6:33, clearly shows that The LORD is not speaking of being rich and diabetes-free, but of being CONTENT, and worry-free. Please notice that.

I cannot stress this next point more strongly: Please notice that in the SAME chapter, Jesus tells us “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” for your heart will be where your treasure is!!! That is to say, if you focus so strongly on earthly wealth and materialism, that is what you will worship.

The Bible never says that Jesus was poor? Allow me to differ! Everything about his life says He was poor. There is no shame in being poor. He “Made Himself nothing,” His parents were of meager means, He was born in a stinking sheep stable, “birds of the air had nests, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head.” Five-member churches have treasurers, so spare me the Avanzini, T.D. Jakes quotes. I could go on. He even told a RICH guy to go and sell everything he had in order to follow Jesus. But the guy loved his stuff too much.

And SEEDS in the Bible are more likely DEEDS than MONEY! That is a ploy to get ours.

We who decry the false teacher are not doing so because we are “jealous” of their money. I certainly am not! As a matter of fact, it is ALWAYS the WoF adherents whom I constantly hear gleefully yelling about “the wealth of the wicked being lain up for the just!” and delighting in being “the head, and not the tail.” (Didn’t Jesus chastise His disciples for arguing over status?)

Yes, David was rich. As was Abraham, Solomon, Job, Joseph and many others. But the often-missed point is that many saints were dirt poor. And they were no more less blessed than the rich ones. God is able to work through ALL, rich, AND poor. This shows that financial status is no determinant in being blessed by God. And I never heard Creflo or any of the others quote the passage about asking God to make us content in whatever state we find ourselves. We don’t have to lie on Jesus’ tax bracket in order to rationalize our desire, not for God, but for what is in His HAND!

God says His strength is made known through our weakness. And if we get our status from what we have, rather than in the service of God, we essentially say we don’t need His help, and the reward we get here is all that we will get!

Finally, find out what true prosperity is. God sent “His only Son to be broke,” as you say, perhaps because in that way, the lowest of the low can beseech Him and identify with Him. I bet you can’t “touch the hem of Creflo Dollar’s garment” without getting a beatdown! Also, God came in meager humanity and can identify with OUR hunger, pain, and weakness.

Come on up in your thinking. Life is not all, not even MOSTLY, about money! Money should be our servant, not the Master whose presence we so fervently desire! That is all I am trying to say here.

I am not trying to belittle you or disrespect you. It is just that I can’t stand seeing people robbed in broad daylight. God bless you, Derrick.

This is what they want: They want your MONEY. Period. They don’t want you informed. They don’t want you scholarly or Berean. They want you GREEDY! They want you like chirping baby chicks– open-mouthed and empty-minded. They don’t love God OR you. Only your pennies and quarters. Read your bibles. During the week. Learn about CONTEXT! This will eliminate a lot of the Scripture-pretzelizing that goes on in a lot of churches.

I don’t say this because I want your money. Maybe this endeavor will send up timber, as the old folks say, although I want a BRICK mansion, not a wooden one! I only write about crooked preachers because they are biblically-armed robbers, and it is Christian work to make a citizen’s arrest, as that theologian, Barney Fife, would say.

I thought I would have a lot of people reading about some of the other stuff I’ve posted. I’ve written about race, parenting my boy, Max, atheism, music, and lots of other things, but nope! False teachers seem to be the squeaky hinges that need all the grease!

There are a few words and phrases common within the current form of popular Prosperity preaching. Many of us are not biblically literate enough to discern, so I figured that I’d perform this small service right quick. Indulge my grammar, if you will…

If you are at a church and hear two or more of these terms in one service, button up yo’ hip pocket and get out before offering time! If you are watching teevee and hear these terms, turn the channel to Nick at Nite and find “Sanford and Son,” ’cause Aunt Esther got more Holy Ghost than most of these televandalists!

If they try to get you to donate a certain amount of money that corresponds with a certain Bible chapter and verse, ding ding ding ding! They are trying to test your sucker-filter.

I’ve done tireless research- to the chagrin of my wife- and there are more, but these are a few of the key ones;

1 “Sow into…” (meaning money)

2 “Believe God for your…”

3 “You’re the head and NOT the tail.”

4 “Birth out”

5 “Increeeease!” (Jakes)

6 “Seed” (meaning money)

7 “Your BREAKthrough!” (THIS one is the “Chill Out” of worn-out Christian phrases)

8 Next Level

9 “…calls things that are not as though they were.” (GOD does this. Not people. Word of Faith trash.)

10 “Shanda la la bosha tayaya…”

11 Such and Such “Christian Center”

12 “The spirit of…” (perversion, pedophilia, nicotine, alcohol, drug abuse, pornography, adultery, greed, etc. Are these supposed to be demons? What sense does that make? What were these demons doing before these things were invented, or before people were created?)

13 “Slap yo neighbor, an’ say ‘naaaybuh’…!” (I think they do this to make sure that the mob mentality has kicked in and they are ready for the fleecin”!)

14 Authority (YOURS, not God’s)

15 “In this season”

16 “This is your Time”

17 “God’s gittin’ retty ta…”

18 “Take you out” (as in, “The devil’s tryin’ to “‘take you out!'”)

19 “Double Po’tion”

20 “Tenfold Blessin'”

21 “Money COMIN’!”

22 “God is raisin’ up a generation of…”

23 “I’m speaking prophetically, now…”

24 “You will never be the same!”

25 Supernatural favor!

26 “Supernatural debt cancellation”

27 “This (whatever year it currently is) is the year of…” (They do this every– single– year! It is so tired. Endless false, unchallenged prophecies.)

28 “Speak to your situation.”

29 “It’s your time!”

30 “Um preachin’ now!”

31 The anointing

Question: Why do they always have to holler? Did Jesus holler at His congregations? And HE didn’t even have a microphone. Don’t holler at me. I ain’t sleep! If you can’t get your point across in a calm manner, maybe you need to check your source material. Preach more Bible and less Rev.Whosoever.

I like to hear James Brownholler, but his lyrical content and diction were a whole lot less important than yours should be, IMpostle.

What is the difference between the Prosperity Gospel movement and hip-hop as it is currently portrayed?

Nothing!

In the version of hip-hop, or rap music presented by 50 Cent, Ludacris, Nelly, Li’l Bitty Kim, Paul Wall, the Cash Money crew, P. Diddy, or just about any of the “artists” of the last 15 years, from the Notorious BIG, and Mase to now, the genre is all about materialism. That is: what you have, how much money you got, and how many women you got.

In the current aberrant version of Christianity being thrust down our throats by such luminaries as, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Juanita Bynum, Kenneth Copeland, John Hagee, Joel Osteen, Rod Parsley, Paula White, and the whole TBN, Daystar, Word Network cabal, the focus is all on materialism. That is: what they have, how much money God is tryin’ to git to you, and how many women they got. In their congregations. (‘Scuse my grammar)

In hip-hop, you are bombarded with images of expensive exoticars, champagne bottles spilling over with the nectar of the idol gods, multi-thousand-dollar watches, million-dollar rings and necklaces, fur-clad beauties, mansions, and lear jets.

In hip-hop, the focus is not on art, but on self. Self-promotion, self-indulgence, self-reliance, self-importance, and self-satisfaction.

In this prosperity trash, the focus is not on the Divine Artist of all creation, but on self. Self (I really could just “copy and paste” from here)-promotion, self-indulgence, self-reliance, self-importance, and self-satisfaction. Here, I will elaborate:

They promote themselves and what they have, and rather than spreading the ill-gotten wealth, they tell you to go get it from God.

They indulge themselves on the helpless sheep, from whom all their blessings flow. They indulge their own greed, and instruct you to do the same.

They are relianton their own “Faith” to get their personal will done. God, to them, is “illegal” (Myles Munroe, Hinn, Dollar, Copeland, Hagin, and on…) in this Earth realm without man’s assent. How blasphemous!!! HE relies on Creflo, et.al.

Of course they are self-important! All those titles! Apostle this, Prophetess that, Bishop the other… Call T.D. Jakes, mister Jakes, call Juanita, missus Bynum-Weeks, and you might catch a dirty look and a beatdown from their security cadre– I mean- “Armor Bearers.”! With Juanita, you’ll get TWO dirty looks!

Self-satisfaction? Their game is all about self-satisfaction! This enterprise is not about loving God, the beautiful and wonderful Creator of the universe. It is all about getting needs met, never about getting saved. It is about getting that job, that car, that MAN, that healing, that MONEY. As Creflo says, “You ain’t gone HAVE no peace unless you got some MONEY!” God is a by-product. God is a side effect. God is the Middle man. The only use for God, in their economy, is to facilitate the transaction! God is just the bus that takes them to the bank! (sorry, Lord.)

Hip-hop seems to be inundated with rump shaking strippers, euphemistically re-termed “Video Vixens.” (I guess I know too much about this junk…)

The current Charismatic, Pentecostal, Prosperity movement (sadly, these all seem to transmogrify-to use a COGIC-style word- from one to the other) appears to advance the notion that if they can keep you dancin’ in the aisles shakin’ that “money-maker,” you won’t have time or energy to learn how to read and interpret Scripture, or to watch your wallet!

note: David danced, for sure. But he knew his Word!

Gangster rap/hip-hop has prostituted and diluted the significance of the term “art” for personal gain.

Crooked preachers have pimped and distorted the image of the true Word of God for personal gain.

Hip-hop proponents tell us that if we criticize the genre, we are un-hip, and neglecting to notice that Elvis did the same thing and that they are only ghetto journalists. They label naysayers, “haters.” You might get shot.

Prosperity junkies tell us that we fail to realize that Jesus was rich, and wants us so. They warn that if we “touch God’s anointed,” we are judging, and in danger of hellfire.

This is amazing! Hip-hop and Prosperity preaching are conjoined twins! I can’t tell where one begins and the other ends!

They were doing this in the earliest days of the Church; prostituting the Word for sordid gain. The current hip-hop brood has learned their trade admirably.

I saw Paula White on television last night and was struck by how sordid and stained all this recent mess is. She had to repeatedly make reference to her “situation” when she should have been ministering what “Thus sayeth the Lord.” Juanita Bynum has been doing the same thing.

Yes, we all have sinned and FALL short of the glory of God. None of us knows what tragedies and scandals await us. As Paula repeatedly said, “you haven’t lived your whole life yet.” (“hint to all of you who are watching and judging me…”) I may wind up divorced one day, who knows, I can’t make her stay if she leaves, but I know this: I won’t cheat on my wife, and I won’t leave her because we can’t “reconcile our differences!” There are sins I know I won’t commit. By the perseverance of the Lord, I say this, and not by my own self-righteousness. No one can snatch me from His hand, or bind Him up and clean Him out.

But being a victim of misfortune is quite different than DELIBERATELY sinning! Winding up paralyzed from a car accident is not the same as robbing a bank and getting shot in the spine. You, your husband, and the Bynums can CHOOSE not to get divorced. You can choose, too, not to indulge your fleshly greed by pimping the Word.

These couples clearly prostitute Scripture for their own sordid gain. (And kill all of the noise about them “Speaking to my situation and making me feel better about myself.” A psychiccan do that, and they charge WAY less! You want to feel better? Get a massage!) Their heresy and blasphemy can be, and has been, proven. But because they have “style,” and strut and step like roosters, people ignore their biblical foulness.

It is just shameful that TBN’s ratings spike when these women are on because people want to see what they have to say. I saw only the last few minutes (flipping channels) and what I immediately noticed was that she looked some old singer trying to make a comeback after going to rehab, or getting out of prison. She looked like Bleek Gilliam in “Mo’ Better Blues” after he got smashed in the mouth with his horn. (the Black folk will get that reference) For the White folks, she looked like Frank Sinatra, in that old movie about singer/comedian Joe E. Lewis, trying to sing again after having his throat cut.

She looked like Bambi on I-40. Frozen stiff. Had I not known of her, I’d have been praying to the Lord to help this po’ chile get through her first sermon. That sermon was peppered with admonitions not to judge, a clear reference to those who have been condemning her behavior and demanding for her to step down. At least Jimmy Swaggart appeared to have apologized. “I have sinnnned agin’ Theeee!”

It would be one thing if she were teaching orthodoxy, but she can be seen begging for money for the “Day of Atonement” (doesn’t she KNOW that Jesus did all that??? She must!), using Bible chapters and verses to get folk to send 119 dollars and 15 cents, or such madness, and adding to God’s specific revelation by allegedly prophesying what the Spirit spoke to HER. I saw Ed Norton do the same thing in, “The Illusionist!” Her ministry is founded in sin. Based on materialism and self-esteem. God is her pinata, not her Lord and Master. Her marriage, along with that of the False Profitess, is like an upside-down pyramid. The women are the heads. Not because they make the most money, but because it is clear they are runnin’ thangs, as we say. Their ministries are backward, in that God is not only not the PILOT, but He isn’t even the CO-pilot! He’s a steward in the back somewhere. The PARTNERS are the co-pilots!

One particular thing I picked up was that she said that “Suffering ain’t sickness or poverty, nooo, that’s religion, a trick of the enemy, suffering is persecution…!” To the cheers of her almost all female audience. That was slick, because the whole Word of Faith line is a well body and some cash! If suffering included poverty and cancer, then it could be said that God ordains that (since He said we WILL suffer), and we couldn’t use our FAITH to change it, and sister Paula would have to either get a real job answering phones, or start preaching the Truth and move out of Trump’s building!

It’s just a crying shame that so much teevee time is being wasted by these women defending their sinful actions, scrambling around, trying to put out the fires that incinerate their smoldering empires rather than being used rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

You ever had a feeling about someone, an inkling, an undelineated indication that you can’t specifically identify? I know you have. We all have from time to time. I have had this feeling on numerous occasions, and have been wrong a couple of times. However, I have been right a LOT.

The person about whom I have this feeling currently is Juanita Bynum, the -self-proclaimed, self-fulfilled (pun)- prophetess. This feeling does not stem from my bitter aversion to her abuse of doctrine, or of her OBVIOUS prostitution of the Word and name of the Lord for her own personal accruement of wealth. (No, I am NOT jealous of her! No more than I would be jealous to usurp the position of anyone who would dare put a millstone around his own neck in the enterprise of misleading baby Christians!) No, this is not about her abominable doctrine.

I’ve heard her screeching at the top of her shrill voice countless prophecies that did not come to pass. I’ve heard her say some of the most inappropriate, titillating things on the altar of the Lord that appear to be only for shock value. The shrieks of her mostly female audience prove my point. To her proponents, she is only being “real.” She intimidates those in her presence in a quite masculine manner. I’ve heard her demanding folk to empty their bank accounts and send them in. I’ve heard her speak of having “intercourse in the spirit(!)” with a male televandalist, and heard her justify this statement by saying “you have to have a male and a female” to do this! I’ve heard of her blessing out a woman in front of an entire assembly who DARED enter a thousand-dollar line with only fifty dollars! I have heard her torture the Scriptures in a more efficient fashion than an abattoir overseer!

I have heard all this and much more that I’ve forgotten, but her heresy is not my issue right now… When I hear her speak, I hear a profound arrogance. A pronounced self-importance! I get the sense when I hear her, that there’s no one in that room on her level. No one as important as she. The words she speaks seem to roll syruptitiously (my word) down her surgically reconstructed nose to the longing ears of her eager thrall.

I cannot STAND arrogance! How dare we seek to take credit from the Lord for any ability or blessing? Yes, one may claim to give God the glory, but their actions usually spell out the truth. She may claim humility, but she fairly drips with hubris.

I remember her relating a story one time recently where a niece of hers asked for a key to Bynum’s house. Bynum reproved her shrieking, “Naw, honey! I got MILLIONS in my house!” Her audience hummed approval; “Yeh, she DO! Umm-Hmm. Thass right, gurrl.” ARROGANCE. She often has her audience at the point where she can say just about any crazy thing without fear of reprisal.

I come from a neighborhood where a lot of “worldly” guys lived. We had a pimp named “Percy” who lived down the street and always kept a yellow Cadillac and a woman with a rabbit fur coat on. Percy the Pimp!! The man next door did time for accessory to murder in the commission of an armed robbery. His son would lie and say, “He gone to the Army,” or, when we found out he was in prison, “He stole a lawn mower.”

There was a housing project in the neighborhood behind us, and when it was built, bikes mysteriously began coming up missing, and fences were erected in previously open yards. There were people who had a little, and people who had nothing, all living in the same neighborhood. We had police officers, teachers, like my parents, laborers, drunks, and hustlers, all there on Gainsville. There was a time when I was fairly gullible. I was quick to trust and believe the word of someone I thought my friend, because I thought the world was a nice place when I was five. I soon learned that if I were going to make it, I would have to be able to discern the truth from a lie. You see, a liar is not going to come straight out and say, “Okay, I’m gittin’ ret ta tell a lie, but ack like you believe me anyway*!” I had to get burned a few times before I figured out how to spot a liar. I had a guy in the second grade tell me that if I gave him my Hot Wheels ’68 Cougar, he had this machine at home that could turn it into a fancy CORVETTE! I’m STILL waiting on that car… You don’t have to have grown up on the streets to recognize a hustler when you see one, but it doesn’t hurt. (I saw Kobe’s arrogance WAY before he got into trouble!)

Watching Bynum on video doing an interview on her recent, alleged, beating at the hands of her Rook-I mean-Bishop husband left me with the sense that something was amiss. She was double-talking, contradicting earlier public statements in which she stated unequivocally that, “even if we KILL each other,” she would not leave her husband. Here, she emphatically pronounced the marriage over. She seemed the perfect victim: a few tears, an uncharacteristically calm, demure demeanor… All who know her story know that she is the dominant partner in the union. Just look at some of their photos.

She has spent most of her on-air time since then touting her new destiny as the “Face of domestic abuse.” Not a scratch to be seen on that face. Now, I don’t expect her to come right out and say, “I’m gone ride this hoss till it DROP!” (that would be counter-productive) But something in her words and manner says just that! Growing up as I did makes me kind of recognize when someone is “Runnin’ Game,”** as we say.

I noticed that she said repeatedly, on the video, that she would not disparage Weeks, “As long as he is my husband.” (transparent statement) But I also heard her repeatedly refer to the occurrence as “a parking lot incident.” Over and over. I was reminded of Mark Antony’s clever speech in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” He claimed that he came not to praise Caesar, but to bury him, all the while subtly turning the crowd’s wrath on the men who murdered him while constantly repeating that they were “All, all honorable men.” I don’t know if the “Prophetess” ever read the play, but I recognized the strategy, and she employed it deftly!

I have seen the faces of beaten women, and they look just that. Beaten. Why do I have to pause here and say that any man who hits a woman is a punk? Of course that is the case. If he did it, HE needs to be medicated in the same way, so to speak. But I suggest that even if he just pushed her down, or tripped her, she can SAY that he did whatever to her, and will automatically be believed. I have seen it happen. Why were there no pictures of her face?

Why did she go after him when he chose to leave?

If you are going to fight in a parking lot, you’ll fight in a restaurant. If he was that angry, he would have done it inside. They are both public places.

The bellhop said THEY were fighting, not just that he was beating her.

She has used her platform as a motivational speaker (that’s all she really is) cleverly enough so that her legion of fans need nothing but her word that he did whatever she says he did in order to be convinced. She is so arrogant and prideful, that she, supposedly a minister, adamantly pronounces the marriage over- with NO adultery, the ONLY Biblical reason- and states that she would have to give 250% to her union in order to save it, while her ministry, her DESTINY, is more important, requiring only 190%! Does she not know that God says that you sin if you forsake marriage for ministry? Is it more important to be the the face of domestic violence than to lead souls to Living Water? Or, is it simply more lucrative?Does not Christ and the Gospel suffice? Should she not concentrate on proper exegesis and marital soundness? Should she not learn how to-Biblically- submit her pride and arrogance as a proper wife?

Has she not made a cottage industry out of “teaching me how to love you,” and counselling couples and “ministering” to hurting women who need a good man? Should she and her husband already know how to navigate such waters as these? Don’t they know that God can fix anything? Are her “millions” more important than her standing before the God she claims to serve and obey?

I guess I write this because I know that she is about to milk this incident dry. At the expense of women who really have been brutally abused and murdered at the hands of their husbands and boyfriends. I am tired of her ubiquitous presence on “Christian” airwaves. I am sick of hucksters, pimps, and dream-sellers abusing those really in need, and unlearned. I am sick of the arrogance and pride with which they so boldly bilk the multitudes. It is just another business angle for her, and I’m frustrated because it is all so transparent.

There is just something about her demeanor and attitude that rubs me the opposite way. Something in that shrill, croaking voice that does not impress upon me the love of God… There appears to be a character chip missing from the programming. I don’t see that she truly respects people. Certainly not the ones whom she demands empty their bank accounts and such! There is refuge for her, I guess, in the fact that I’m not a prophet, not a mind-reader. But I know I’m right, and many of you feel it too. Is that what the Bible calls, “discernment?”

Maybe. However, I can’t stand arrogance in people. It’s okay if I esteem you, brother, as better than me, but humbug it if YOU esteem yourself so! How dare you, Rosie O’Donnell, or Trump (Paula White’s landlord), or T.O., or Bynum, or anypuffed-up “Apostle,” or “Bishop,” or any other phoney prideful prognosticator seek God’s prominence for yourself based on how much money, or power, or influence you have?! I don’t hate you, but according to I Cor. 5, specifically, verse eleven, I wouldn’t, don’t have to, even EAT with you, or anyone so haughty and disingenuous as to claim Jesus and be so obviously, repeatedly, out of His will. Get fixed up. Quickly.

Pride goeth before the fall, baby girl! Thass Proverbs 16:18!

*”I am preparing to prevaricate. Conduct yourself as though you are benighted to this fact!”

I’m sitting here at this very moment listening to Creflo Dollar telling his congregants that the only way to deal with negative or sinful thoughts is to use words. And that if you say a negative thing such as, “I don’t believe I’ll live past 35,” you’ll die at 34 1/2. He has seen it happen!

This is the core of the Word of Faith lie: that the world is governed by the words you SAY.

A thought occurred to me: What about people who can’t talk? Can they not be delivered from negative thoughts? Can a mute person not be healed because he has no tongue with which to speak? What about someone in a hospital who is bandaged up and unable to say words out loud? This is some stupid, un-thought out theo-illogical materialistic madness! Please, people, stop giving these charlatans a foothold in your minds and pockets, and THINK!

This is ridiculous! And so many have bought into it because THEY want to be in control of whether they are healthy, or wealthy enough. When I was a child I would sometimes sneak and do something without asking my folks, because I knew there was a possibility they would tell me “no” if I asked. We are often scared to ask, “if it be thy will” because we know that He may not desire that we get the high-paying job, or the big house, or the flashy car. He may tell us that His “grace is sufficient,” and we may not want to know that.

Christianity is not about jobs, cars, breakthroughs, situations, and other sloganistic foolishness. It is about serving God, worshipping God, SUFFERING for, and like, Christ, and for telling everybody else who He really is and what He really DID!

He says that the Christian does not want the responsibility of changing their own situation. That we want to see what GOD’S gonna do for us.

That is very clever. To take what God has told us is HIS job, and make it seem as though it is a sin to act that way, but proper to command God to do OUR will.

“See, you still think GOD’S in control!” He says boldly. Creflo thinks that we need to know that God has given US the control. Blasphemer! What kind of god does he, or you if you follow him, serve who gives up the wheel?

These Word of Faith hucksters weave a web of lies that ensnare the greedy and selfish among us. They are infecting the entire world with this counterfeit brand of Christianity, and the only way to stop it is for REAL Christians to learn the Word of God-book by book and not quote by quote- and to stand up and sit these spiders down!

I, being a musician, am up till the wee small hours of the night. in what is perhaps not the best expense of my time, I usually end up watching televangelists on networks such as, BET, TBN, the Word network, and the God Channel (how presumptuous!). Some may call me a “heresy hunter,” or some other such derisive term designed to steer one’s focus away from “the man behind the curtain.” (see: “The Wizard of Oz”) In my mind, I am fulfilling a Biblical mandate to defend and protect the faith which was handed down to us. I don’t “hunt” heresy. I am simply a Christian who is learning about the Lord, and who sees a need to defend His character as I would my earthly father if he were being constantly lied on and misrepresented. I NOTICE heresy. I don’t get caught up in the charisma or the personality of a “Mand of Gawd.”* God is not Santa, and these hucksters are not His little helpers. They’re more like little “self-helpers!”

“Pastor” Kerney Thomas, is a popular (I guess) late-night info-preacher, that is known for his empassioned, almost tearful pleas on behalf of those poor souls who need his healing power, his healing hankies, his anointed oil, and YOUR money. So that you may know him when you see him, he looks like Clifton Davis**, and he frequently breaks into these sudden, startling shouts when the power of GOD! is released on someone, whether in person or through the teevee screen. He apparently is so anointed that his healings are effective on tape at three-fifteen in the morning when all the ladies with the green dresses on, and nebulous migraine headaches are asleep! Wow!

One problem: If he is so good at healing folk — through the power of GOD!– why is he going bald?

Can’t GOD!, grow hair?

Why does he heal the chicken parts, the backs, and legs, and necks of people who are still overweight and still wear glasses?! Wouldn’t a true God be able to restore sight and take off a few pounds? It is interesting that Bruh*** Thomas only heals that which cannot be seen. Through the power of-GOD!

If God– the REAL God– can make a man out of some DIRT (which He did), can’t He replace a leg? If He can raise someone who has been dead for days, can’t he put an eye into an empty socket? On teevee? Yeah, Benny Hinn, or some other one, always tells stories about people being raised from the dead watching his program, or what happened in some revival in east Africa somewhere, or in Iowa forty years ago, but we never see it on teevee. All we see are people getting up from wheelchairs (that were probably given to them on the way in! Robert Tilton!).

Rather than join in the chorus of “Fake!, Fake!,” many of those claiming Christ would rather squelch the cries by calling us heresy hunters. Rather than examining these public teachings, which should rightfully be scrutinized, they launch websites casting judgments on people who are simply pointing out the wolf. But all the while, they say that it is wrong to judge… Why don’t they see the contradiction in their diction? It is as if they are saying, “It’s wrong to hate, so I hate those who hate me.”

These people are the Discovery Channel hyenas that feed on the old and weak wildebeest and zebras in the teeming, needful herd, and just like hyenas, they laugh sarcastically at us all for not being learned and able enough to protect them. So, if I had only two choices, I’d rather be a “Heresy Hunter” than an accomplice to the pillage of the poor!

I’ve got this great idea for a movie: This hero comes to save mankind and is wrongfully put to death. He goes to hell and engages in this epic three day battle with Satan, the ruler of hell. It is a war of unrivalled proportions, the hero wrestling the devil for his keys to death and hell emerges victorious with the keys clutched in his upraised hand!

One problem, though: that script has already been written by Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Frederick Price, and their brand. While the Bible says that it wouldn’t take God three days to whup NObody, and that Jesus paid the whole debt ON the cross, the Word of Faith faithful feel the need to punch up God’s script with an extra action scene. ( The archangel Michael already beat the devil once!)

And another thing; Satan doesn’t rule hell! Hell is where he and his folk will be cast at the end of all things. If he were “in” hell, how was he “slithering” through the garden whispering in Eve’s ear? How was he in the presence of God debating Job’s trust or lack of trust? Why should we beware a roaring lion who lives in hell? How could he seek and devour us from there? He is not omnipresent! Revelation says that Satan was hurled to the EARTH with his angels. Even a little common sense and logic would shut these guys up.

And down.

These people kill me! Putting spinning, chrome rims on a Gullwing Mercedes! Gold-plating the Hope Diamond to make it shine! Putting rhinestones on an Armani suit! Putting wallpaper on the Sixteen Chapels! (I know!) Trying to shellac the Mona Lisa! (Personally, though, I don’t get her. She looks like Benny Franklin.) The Atonement is a flawless fact as it is.

The Bible is a wonderfully woven tapestry.

Why try to make it better than God already did?

“It is finished.”

“Absent from the body, present with the Lord.”

“This day you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Jesus’ work was done on the cross. Price says that ANY man could have died on the cross if that was all it took, that He had to go to hell to finish the work. Yeah, any PERFECT man! You know one? Another one?

Let’s study our bibles, folks, so we can shut these racketeers- I mean- raconteurs down.

Real monsters are smooth and attractive.
They wear fine clothes and drive glorious cars paid for by you.
They wear pinky rings and gilded crosses.
They live in homes mortgaged with your souls.
They whisper nothings in your ear that make you rely on your own inabilities.
They put you on a pedestal and pull God down.
They erase His features and draw yours.
They increase your desire for money, while ironically divorcing you from the little you have.
They calmly close your Bible and gaze into your eyes sincerely.
“We won’t be needing this,” they whisper, smiling. “I got a story to tell.”

You become so enchanted that you follow THEM.

Rather than the God they falsely proclaim.

God’s Word is the microscope that can show you the REAL face of the monster,
but you wield it – if at all- awkwardly, like a child swinging an axe.
The monster has you now.
And you don’t recognize him.

Because you think that real monsters growl.

But real monsters are cunning.
They know that in order to feed, they must sneak up quietly.
Real monsters, false profits, engorge themselves on your ignorance.

About Us

Derrick L. Williams is the husband of Kathy, the daddy of Max (hence Maxdaddy), Diana, and, Steven Horace(!), and a professional saxophone player with a Christian heart who has strong, sometimes humorous, probably controversial opinions on the state of the world. He attends a multi-racial, doctrinally sound church on purpose (!), and lives in a racially divided, troubled city.

There’s a lot of stuff to gripe about, but the desire is to teach as well as to entertain. He has quite a bit to say, and he has a need for someone to listen.

He loves romance novels by crackling fires, thick wool sweaters, and hot cocoa with marshmallows in it, long walks in cool breezes, poems spoken in soft, whispery voices, and brunches by babbling brooks! HE IS JUST KIDDING!!!